le, almost colourless eyes.

"I wondered where you had gone, and he said you would write next day."

"That was all?"

"Why, how suspicious you are!"

She spoke banteringly.

"Suspicious! No--but Leo does not understand me very well. I was rather
old when he was born, and I have never been able to be much with him. He
was educated in England, and my duties of course lay abroad."

He paused, looking at her and moving his thin white moustache. Then, in
an uneasy voice, he added:

"You must not take my character altogether from Leo."

"Nor you mine altogether from Miss Schley," said Lady Holme.

She scarcely knew why she said it. She thought herself stupid,
ridiculous almost, for saying it. Yet she could not help speaking.
Perhaps she relied on Sir Donald's age. Or perhaps--but who knows why
a woman is cautious or incautious in moments the least expected? God
guides her, perhaps, or the devil--or merely a bottle imp. Men never
know, and that is why they find her adorable.

Sir Donald said nothing for a moment, only made the familiar movement
with his hands that was a sign in him of concealed excitement or
emotion. His eyes were fixed upon the ledge of the box. Lady Holme was
puzzled by his silence and, at last, was on the point of making a remark
on some other subject--Plancon's singing--when he spoke, like a man
who had made up his mind firmly to take an unusual, perhaps a difficult
course.

"I wish to take it from you," he said. "Give me the right one, not an
imitation of an imitation."

She knew at once what he meant and was surprised. Had Leo Ulford been
talking?

"Lady Holme," he went on, "I am taking a liberty. I know that. It's a
thing I have never done before, knowingly. Don't think me unconscious
of what I am doing. But I am an old man, and old men can sometimes
venture--allowance is sometimes made for them. I want to claim that
allowance now for what I am going to say."

"Well?" she said, neither hardly nor gently.

In truth she scarcely knew whether she wished him to speak or not.

"My son is--Leo is not a safe friend for you at this moment."

Again the dull, brick-red flush rose in his cheeks. There was an odd,
flattened look just above his cheekbones near his eyes, and the eyes
themselves had a strange expression as of determination and guilt
mingled.

"Your son?" Lady Holme said. "But--"

"I do not wish to assume anything, but I--well, my daughter-in-law
sometimes comes to me."

"Som